The proper analogy can be found, as is so often true, with children learning to speak, that extraordinary intellectual feat we all accomplished before the adults got it into their heads that they could "teach" us. Children get ready to speak by hearing speech all around them. The important thing about that speech is that the adults, for the most part, are not talking in order to give children a model. They are talking to each other because they have things to say...."
"....to sit on the sofa, one on each side, was a very happy scene, all the more so because she read these stories with the greatest seriousness, without a touch of sentimentality or condescension, no "cute" inflections in her voice." (oh how our voices change when we try to teach)
"What children need to get ready for reading is exposure to a lot of print. Not pictures, but print. They need to bathe their eyes in print, as when smaller they bathe their ears in talk. After a while, as they look at more and more print, these meaningless forms, curves, and squiggles begin to steady down, take shape, become recognizable, so that the children, without yet knowing what letters or words are, begin to see...."
This is not the look and guess of my era of "being taught"...but just being read too...a good story
I don't know yet what I feel or what is going to work...we will keep an open mind....but also make sure we are not getting swept away with expert ideas or teaching methods of today (yesterday ;-))
Up date and still to read in full http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/0804/reading_with_grace.htm
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